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xp_logs2016-03-28 08:42 am
x-hawkeye.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2016-03-28 08:42 am
Entry tags:
Are We Ourselves? - Prelude
Coulson gives Clint a call and asks for a favor.
Clint was on his regular morning run when his phone started blaring, interrupting the dulcet tones of REM with what, he was sure, some people would call an all-American classic. He might have ignored it, given the timing, but ‘The Star-Spangled Man With A Plan’ was Coulson's very particular ringtone.
Slowing down, Clint took a breath, made sure he had the right headphones for a conversation, and then answered the call. "Bit early for you, isn't it?" He leaned against a tree, checking the time on his watch. It wasn't actually that early, but well.
"Not at all, Barton. Not all of us stay up until all hours doing whatever seems like a good idea at 1:30 AM," Phil Coulson's measured dry tone came back. Among his other vices or virtues depending on the perspective, he was a definite morning person. Popular sentiment among the lower levels of SHIELD agents was that Coulson rolled out of his bed with his subdued black suit creased just so and his tie perfectly knotted.
Clint snorted a little at that, turning to brace his foot on the tree trunk he'd been leaning against so he could stretch while they talked. If asked, he would absolutely admit to the fact that he'd entertained the idea of changing Coulson's ringtone to Beyonce's 'Flawless.' "The wee hours of the morning are prime science-ing hours, Phil," he said. "To what do I owe the pleasure, though? Tasha's still good. Darcy's settled in well. You knew Ev was here before I did."
"Which I'm very happy to hear." Coulson had gone out on a limb a bit for all four of them, he was pleased that his slight gamble seemed to have paid off. He was a firm believer in doing the right thing by people. There followed an uncharacteristically long pause. "I need you to look into something for me," the SHIELD agent said.
"What kind of 'something?'" Clint asked, letting his foot fall back to the dirt path he'd been running a few moments ago. "Like, 'Hey, my cellist friend that I think nobody knows about but people totally know about likes Indian, please destroy your taste buds trying these ten different restaurants, then give me your evaluations of the food quality, sanitation, and service of each in carbon copy triplicate by next Tuesday?' Or more like, 'Hey, can you off the books go kill a dude in Uzbekistan?' Also, yes, this line is secure. The dude who wrote the encryption program and the scrambling algorithm is amazing, you wish you had him on your payroll."
Coulson snorted. "Really? We're playing the 'who knows more about whom' game?" The headshake of mild exasperation could almost be heard over the telephone line. "I think we're a bit old to be playing those sorts of...measuring games."
Grinning, Clint said, "Really? You're gonna leave yourself wide open for an age joke, old man?"
"That would require me to be ashamed of my age, Barton," Coulson rejoined mildly. "I haven't heard any complaints yet." He paused and pinched his nose. "We are getting off the subject," he said with a clipped tone that indicated he was frustrated with himself for allowing the subject to wander. Which meant that whatever he was asking Clint for made him uncomfortable.
Clint frowned at the tone and said, "Hey, yeah. No. What's up? What do you need? You know I'm good for it, for whatever."
Coulson hated going outside channels. He was the sort of man who made the system work for him. But this...this was just based on a feeling. (Coulson didn't like the word 'hunch'.) But he couldn't even go to Fury with just a feeling. Even if Fury did pay him to analyze situations on very little data, this was just too thin. And so, Barton. "I need you to take your merry band of weirdos to Barrow," he finally said.
"Merry band of weirdos?" Clint could have feigned ignorance, given he didn't have an official merry band of weirdos... but he really only enjoyed fiddling with scientific semantics. However, stalling Coulson when he was obviously already wound up about something wouldn't help whatever situation was on-going. "I've got Tasha and a couple people I can depend on, sure. What's going on in Barrow?"
Coulson had been all ready with a "I'm not other people, Clinton" rebuke if the younger man had tried to suggest that he didn't have a 'merry band of weirdos'. Though maybe that was a bit of reminiscing on his part of trying to feign ignorance once upon a time to a younger Nick Fury saying, "Cheese, I need you to take your merry band of weirdos..." The wheel turns, and what was old is new again. Perhaps that was why he leaned on Clint as a troubleshooter at times like these - the reminder of the man he had been, finding the right people for the job, no matter how unorthodox.
"I'm not entirely sure. On the surface, everything seems to be normal. But at the risk of being cliche, I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Well, shit," Clint said, starting to walk back toward the mansion. He didn't mind cutting his run short. "If you've got a bad feeling about this..." Rubbing at the back of his neck, he continued speaking, mostly just brainstorming at this point. "So me and Tasha. I've got a Miss Indestructible and a Mister Healing-Factors-Are-So-Damn-Convenient I can pull in probably. You're thinking a small band of merry weirdos, right? Cause I dunno if I wanna bring in a ton of other people."
Indestructible would almost certainly be young Miss Hayes... "Healing factor...please tell me it's not Logan." Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'd prefer something a bit more...discreet." Since this was him going on the thinnest of feelings. "And yes, smaller is better, since I don't actually know if anything is going on."
"I can neither confirm nor deny that I have more than a passing acquaintance with anyone at the mansion going by the name 'Logan,'" Clint said, amused. He'd promised not to pass on specific details about the mansionites, which meant that if Kyle had managed to stay off SHIELD's radar so far, Clint wasn't gonna tip the organization to the mutant's status or abilities. "I can, however, promise that we'll keep things as discreet as possible. Meaning we won't blow any buildings up, but we have no control over whatever's given you the heeby-jeebies."
"Of course, yes, deniability." That was part of the deal with Clint being at Xavier's - not pushing him too hard on specifics. "It's...do you ever have that feeling that something is too perfect?" Coulson asked the younger man. "And that itching feeling of not trusting how perfect it all is? That's the feeling I have about the Barrow facility right now."
"Haven't gotten that recently," Clint said, pulling his phone away from his ear for a moment to pull up the weather app on it. He put the phone on speaker, stopping his walk back toward the mansion as he continued, "You're on speaker for a sec. I wanna check what's going on weather-wise in Barrow..." He trailed off, looking at the weather system that weather.gov was telling him was hovering over Barrow. "Dude, when's the last you heard from anybody in Barrow? This system's been stuck over most of Alaska for like two weeks. Comms should all be down except for sat phones."
"SWORD sent a team in, despite the weather reports. They got one report that the weather didn't seem as bad as it was supposed to be." Coulson grimaced. "Then nothing." He paused, again longer than he usually would have. "Hendrickson was on the team."
"Aw, Coulson, no," Clint muttered. He started walking again, cooling off too much now to be comfortable with the chill in the air. "Goddammit." Despite the way he and Hendrickson had parted, there was a new, odd sense of urgency shooting through him. "Okay, I'll give you a heads up before we leave and if we figure out what's going on. Every three days, even if we don't figure out what's up. You know the routine if we miss a check-in."
He did, but Coulson didn't like action plans that used words like 'sanitize' and tended to end with messages saying 'we regret to inform you'. "Don't miss," he said, a wealth of layers and meaning tucked into the two words.
"You know what it'd take to make me miss," Clint said, a smirk in his voice. "I'll be in touch."
Clint was on his regular morning run when his phone started blaring, interrupting the dulcet tones of REM with what, he was sure, some people would call an all-American classic. He might have ignored it, given the timing, but ‘The Star-Spangled Man With A Plan’ was Coulson's very particular ringtone.
Slowing down, Clint took a breath, made sure he had the right headphones for a conversation, and then answered the call. "Bit early for you, isn't it?" He leaned against a tree, checking the time on his watch. It wasn't actually that early, but well.
"Not at all, Barton. Not all of us stay up until all hours doing whatever seems like a good idea at 1:30 AM," Phil Coulson's measured dry tone came back. Among his other vices or virtues depending on the perspective, he was a definite morning person. Popular sentiment among the lower levels of SHIELD agents was that Coulson rolled out of his bed with his subdued black suit creased just so and his tie perfectly knotted.
Clint snorted a little at that, turning to brace his foot on the tree trunk he'd been leaning against so he could stretch while they talked. If asked, he would absolutely admit to the fact that he'd entertained the idea of changing Coulson's ringtone to Beyonce's 'Flawless.' "The wee hours of the morning are prime science-ing hours, Phil," he said. "To what do I owe the pleasure, though? Tasha's still good. Darcy's settled in well. You knew Ev was here before I did."
"Which I'm very happy to hear." Coulson had gone out on a limb a bit for all four of them, he was pleased that his slight gamble seemed to have paid off. He was a firm believer in doing the right thing by people. There followed an uncharacteristically long pause. "I need you to look into something for me," the SHIELD agent said.
"What kind of 'something?'" Clint asked, letting his foot fall back to the dirt path he'd been running a few moments ago. "Like, 'Hey, my cellist friend that I think nobody knows about but people totally know about likes Indian, please destroy your taste buds trying these ten different restaurants, then give me your evaluations of the food quality, sanitation, and service of each in carbon copy triplicate by next Tuesday?' Or more like, 'Hey, can you off the books go kill a dude in Uzbekistan?' Also, yes, this line is secure. The dude who wrote the encryption program and the scrambling algorithm is amazing, you wish you had him on your payroll."
Coulson snorted. "Really? We're playing the 'who knows more about whom' game?" The headshake of mild exasperation could almost be heard over the telephone line. "I think we're a bit old to be playing those sorts of...measuring games."
Grinning, Clint said, "Really? You're gonna leave yourself wide open for an age joke, old man?"
"That would require me to be ashamed of my age, Barton," Coulson rejoined mildly. "I haven't heard any complaints yet." He paused and pinched his nose. "We are getting off the subject," he said with a clipped tone that indicated he was frustrated with himself for allowing the subject to wander. Which meant that whatever he was asking Clint for made him uncomfortable.
Clint frowned at the tone and said, "Hey, yeah. No. What's up? What do you need? You know I'm good for it, for whatever."
Coulson hated going outside channels. He was the sort of man who made the system work for him. But this...this was just based on a feeling. (Coulson didn't like the word 'hunch'.) But he couldn't even go to Fury with just a feeling. Even if Fury did pay him to analyze situations on very little data, this was just too thin. And so, Barton. "I need you to take your merry band of weirdos to Barrow," he finally said.
"Merry band of weirdos?" Clint could have feigned ignorance, given he didn't have an official merry band of weirdos... but he really only enjoyed fiddling with scientific semantics. However, stalling Coulson when he was obviously already wound up about something wouldn't help whatever situation was on-going. "I've got Tasha and a couple people I can depend on, sure. What's going on in Barrow?"
Coulson had been all ready with a "I'm not other people, Clinton" rebuke if the younger man had tried to suggest that he didn't have a 'merry band of weirdos'. Though maybe that was a bit of reminiscing on his part of trying to feign ignorance once upon a time to a younger Nick Fury saying, "Cheese, I need you to take your merry band of weirdos..." The wheel turns, and what was old is new again. Perhaps that was why he leaned on Clint as a troubleshooter at times like these - the reminder of the man he had been, finding the right people for the job, no matter how unorthodox.
"I'm not entirely sure. On the surface, everything seems to be normal. But at the risk of being cliche, I've got a bad feeling about this."
"Well, shit," Clint said, starting to walk back toward the mansion. He didn't mind cutting his run short. "If you've got a bad feeling about this..." Rubbing at the back of his neck, he continued speaking, mostly just brainstorming at this point. "So me and Tasha. I've got a Miss Indestructible and a Mister Healing-Factors-Are-So-Damn-Convenient I can pull in probably. You're thinking a small band of merry weirdos, right? Cause I dunno if I wanna bring in a ton of other people."
Indestructible would almost certainly be young Miss Hayes... "Healing factor...please tell me it's not Logan." Coulson pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'd prefer something a bit more...discreet." Since this was him going on the thinnest of feelings. "And yes, smaller is better, since I don't actually know if anything is going on."
"I can neither confirm nor deny that I have more than a passing acquaintance with anyone at the mansion going by the name 'Logan,'" Clint said, amused. He'd promised not to pass on specific details about the mansionites, which meant that if Kyle had managed to stay off SHIELD's radar so far, Clint wasn't gonna tip the organization to the mutant's status or abilities. "I can, however, promise that we'll keep things as discreet as possible. Meaning we won't blow any buildings up, but we have no control over whatever's given you the heeby-jeebies."
"Of course, yes, deniability." That was part of the deal with Clint being at Xavier's - not pushing him too hard on specifics. "It's...do you ever have that feeling that something is too perfect?" Coulson asked the younger man. "And that itching feeling of not trusting how perfect it all is? That's the feeling I have about the Barrow facility right now."
"Haven't gotten that recently," Clint said, pulling his phone away from his ear for a moment to pull up the weather app on it. He put the phone on speaker, stopping his walk back toward the mansion as he continued, "You're on speaker for a sec. I wanna check what's going on weather-wise in Barrow..." He trailed off, looking at the weather system that weather.gov was telling him was hovering over Barrow. "Dude, when's the last you heard from anybody in Barrow? This system's been stuck over most of Alaska for like two weeks. Comms should all be down except for sat phones."
"SWORD sent a team in, despite the weather reports. They got one report that the weather didn't seem as bad as it was supposed to be." Coulson grimaced. "Then nothing." He paused, again longer than he usually would have. "Hendrickson was on the team."
"Aw, Coulson, no," Clint muttered. He started walking again, cooling off too much now to be comfortable with the chill in the air. "Goddammit." Despite the way he and Hendrickson had parted, there was a new, odd sense of urgency shooting through him. "Okay, I'll give you a heads up before we leave and if we figure out what's going on. Every three days, even if we don't figure out what's up. You know the routine if we miss a check-in."
He did, but Coulson didn't like action plans that used words like 'sanitize' and tended to end with messages saying 'we regret to inform you'. "Don't miss," he said, a wealth of layers and meaning tucked into the two words.
"You know what it'd take to make me miss," Clint said, a smirk in his voice. "I'll be in touch."